Chirp signals may be used in various applications, such as, e.g., radar applications. A chirp signal may refer to a signal that corresponds to a periodic function with a frequency that varies with respect to time. The rate at which the frequency of a chirp signal changes with respect to time may be referred to as the chirp rate.
Frequency synthesizers are commonly used to generate frequency modulated signals from a common reference signal. One type of frequency synthesizer is a phase-locked loop (PLL)-based frequency synthesizer that uses a PLL circuit to generate an output signal that is either an integer multiple of or a fractional multiple of a reference signal. With PLL-based frequency synthesizers, however, it is difficult to generate chirp signals with relatively high chirp rates while still maintaining a relatively low level of phase noise.